Michael Grunwald at Time Magazine is making the point that climate change / global warming (he uses both terms) has reached the point that while, “the pipeline isn’t the worst threat to the climate, it’s a threat. Keystone isn’t the best fight to have over fossil fuels, but it’s the fight we’re having. Now is the time to choose sides.”

Grunwald cannot find any virtue in the Pipeline. In a nutshell, Grunwald dismisses the economic benefit as being limited to temporary construction jobs, states that we are already less reliant on Middle East oil, and believes that the GOP will fight Obama to the end, no matter the concessions.

Grunwald admits that he has mocked the activists in the past while defending Obama’s “climate actions.” Now he believes the activists are right on Keystone. Grunwald’s closing portends an interesting 2013 on the issue as he states, “Keystone isn’t a perfect battlefield, but neither was Selma or Stonewall. In a war, you don’t always get to choose where to fight. You still have to show you’re willing to fight.”